The Thought Of Lippmann's Public Opinion And Its Impact

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann is a worldwide masterpiece about Public Opinion, and it is also the cornerstone in the area of Public Communication. It is of pioneering significance for many research areas, but it did not have a Chinese version until 1984, and what's more, there exist only two versions now. However, because of the interdisciplinary nature of the book and the age, the translation of the book does not accurately comprehend the theme, and there are many problems in the translation of some key concepts. There are not many academic articles studying the thought of Public Opinion, and the domestic scholars have failed to give us a systematic and comprehensive introduction. The Phantom Public, which conducts a more in-depth study on the public, is rarely researched even if in the United States, but it constitutes Lippmann's idea of public opinion, together with Public Opinion. Therefore, it will be beneficial to analyze and study such a representative of the Western Public Opinion to advance our research of Public Opinion and establish our scientific Public Opinion. The author tried to venture that the thesis can be of use in this regard.The thesis holds the idea that Lippmann's thought of Public Opinion is generated from the times of his growth and the education in Harvard. Two thoughts of the modern western philosophy, Scientism (Positivism) and the Irrationalism (Humanism), had a profound influence on Lippmann at Harvard University. Besides, Georege Sangdaena, one of the founders of American Criticism of religionism, and William James, the famous philosopher of pragmatism in America, produced direct impacts on Lippmann. They affected Lippmann's world outlook and life outlook, which later in turn affected his works and thoughts.What is the Public Opinion? How is public opinion possible? Lippmann attempted to prove that, because of the complexity of the facts themselves and the nature and characteristics of news, because of censorship and secrecy system, the object of public opinion - the facts are just "pseudo-environment" to the public by the medium through a series of transmission channels; while the main body of public opinion—the public is non-rational. Their lack of knowledge and rational judgements decides that they understand world by their fixed stereotypes. The so-called public opinion formed by such public based on such facts must be illusory and ridiculous.Then how to construct the public opinion that can be relied on by the democracy? The fundamental solution lies in the establishment of social groups which rare based on a system of analyses and records and intelligence agencies composed by experts. Lippmann effectively organizes a series of unavoidable problems in the research of public opinion, probes into the issues of bias, interest, public will and democratic image, describes all the internal and external mechanisms of the phenomenon of public opinion, and finally completes the first comprehensive exposition of the public opinion in the journalism history, which lays a solid foundation for the future study.Lippmann has made great contributions to the Mass Communication. His theory of pseudo-environment becomes the origin of the subsequent theory of "agenda setting" and research on the latent function of the mass media. The points in Public Opinion later came into the Mass Communication and Lippmann serves as an indispensable link between the Chicago School and the Mass Communication. It is such an important clue that it can never be ignored in the history of Mass Communication of the United States. Mass Communication in China comes from the United States primarily, hence this study can provide a frame of reference to further and program the study of Mass Communication and in China. It is the publication of Public Opinion that symbolizes the birth of Public Opinion as a subject. It exploits the research into public opinion from many perspectives: sociology, psychology, politics and so on. Furthermore, the introduction of these theories in the comprehensive public opinion research mode is of great significance to develop and promote the theory of Public Opinion in China.